Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Laurie Cardoza-Moore from Proclaiming Justice to the Nations to the newsmakers line to talk about California’s anti-Semitic school curriculum and her recent appointment to the Tennessee Textbook Commission.
Leahy: We are joined this morning by our good friend, president, and founder of Proclaiming Justice to the Nation. Laurie Cardoza-Moore. Good morning, Laurie.
Cardoza-Moore: Good morning, Michael. How are you?
Leahy: I’m great. I think California is not so great. Tell us about what they just did out there.
Cardoza-Moore: Well, they just enacted the Ethnic Studies Model curriculum. More propaganda and more disinformation for California students. But Michael, actually it’s very similar to the curriculum and content that we’re seeing being adopted across the country. They just have a different name. And so the school board decided to adopt this curriculum. Again, I think it was over 100,000 emails and phone calls requesting that they not adopt the curriculum because of the propaganda in it, because it’s discriminatory, and because of the way they portrayed Jews.
It’s absolutely outrageous. And now their legislature is getting ready to vote on whether it is going to be mandatory, because currently, right now, that curriculum is not required for all students to take in order to graduate. But they are looking at a piece of legislation that is working its way through their legislature to make this ethnic studies program a requirement for students to graduate.
Leahy: So it’s a 900-page curriculum. Is this anti-Semitic? This Ethnic Studies Model curriculum?
Cardoza-Moore: Absolutely. Absolutely. When they started with the first draft, it’s gone through four iterations. When they started with the first draft, they had people who were tied to the anti-Semitic Black Lives Matter who helped to draft the curriculum. Of course, we know that the Black Lives Matter group when they launched their program last June in California in Los Angeles’s Fairfax District, which is a heavily populated Orthodox Jewish community, the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, who are all about Marxism, never apologized, and never condemned the desecration of synagogues, or the spray painting on the Beverly Hills sign, kill Jews.
And these are the same people who were asked to be involved in drafting this. Now, in this fourth iteration, they’ve incorporated the Mizrahi Jews, which is an Arab community, a Jewish community that is minimal. I’m still trying to research to see the anti-Semitic attacks that have happened against them that are separate from the anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred like in the Orthodox Fairfax District of Los Angeles because this community is an Eastern European Jew. They are white.
And, of course, this whole agenda that they’ve drafted is part of their White privilege initiative. They’re separating the Jews out. Basically keeping the white European Jews who are Ashkenazi as part of the white privilege. But, oh, the is Mizrahi Jews, they’re pitting the community against itself. It’s out of control. It’s unacceptable. And the parents and the citizens have spoken out. And there’s plenty more in the curriculum as well that is problematic.
Leahy: Yeah. Well, here’s the thing about that. California is run by crazy people. And the State Board of Education now has approved this curriculum. I’ve not read it, but I’ll take you at your word that it’s anti-Semitic. And now it’s going to go to the state legislature to mandate it. What do you think is going to happen there? It’s like a supermajority of crazy, insane leftist Democrats in both their state Senate and state Assembly. It seems to me they’re going to pass it, right?
Cardoza-Moore: Yes. Michael, it looks like they’re going to end up passing it unless the people can start recalling their state legislators. I don’t know. It’s the craziest thing that we’ve seen happen.
Leahy: Well, do you think California is lost?
Cardoza-Moore: No, I don’t. And let me tell you why Michael. Because look at the movement that happened with the recall of Governor Newsom. They had over two million signatures that they were able to garner to recall him. That is unprecedented. We are out there and we’re working to help educate and activate the citizens because our mission is more grassroots.
It’s more local dealing with the local control issues that we have within our local and state government. But the people are starting to rise up and they’re saying enough is enough. And I think it’s been because of the whole COVID crisis that people have lost businesses. They can’t keep a roof over their family’s heads. They can’t keep food on the table. Their kids are not in school, although that could be a good thing.
I keep telling people, just homeschool your kids. Even with your kids being home, why would you subject them to propaganda like the public education curriculum and not use a good curriculum? Just tell the schools to forget it. Take my kid off the list. I’ll homeschool my child thank you very much. I can do much better. So I think the people are waking up and that’s what we’re doing.
That’s why we’re coming in now because people are fed up with their government. I think too often many Californians have been sitting back and they’ve been laid back. They’ve allowed a small, loud minority to govern their affairs. And it’s Democrats and it’s Republicans. This is not just Republicans throughout the state of California. It’s Democrats, too, that are saying enough is enough. There are people leaving. Businesses are leaving Los Angeles. Families are moving out of the state of California. They don’t want it anymore.
Leahy: Back here in the Tennessee movement yesterday, you have been nominated by Speaker of the House Cam Sexton to serve on the Textbook Committee. On Wednesday I guess the House Education Committee approved you, and it’s going to go on to the approval by the floor of the House. That’s good news, isn’t it?
Cardoza-Moore: Absolutely. And of course, it’s also the Senate who is going to take it up next Wednesday in their Senate Education Committee. It’s very good news. And I have to tell you, Michael, I’m quite honored that the Speaker would nominate me for this position. I am grateful to all the legislators. I heard Representative Sparks on earlier before I came on, and he was very gracious and very supportive yesterday in the committee.
We have a major problem with curriculum in our schools, and it’s not just here in Tennessee. It is across this country. We, as parents and citizens of our state, of our counties, of our school districts must take back control of our communities. We have to take control back from our schools. These school board members run and I say that for the most part, because there are a small minority of school board members in different school boards across the country who are trying to make a difference.
But they are outnumbered because of the progressives who sit on these education boards. It’s very dangerous what is happening. Michael, I always refer back to what’s happened over the last year. We wonder what’s happened. Like in civics education, our children are being indoctrinated with propaganda to hate America, not to love America. Well, if you look at what’s happened in our country over the last year since the whole COVID crisis, we see Portland ablaze, Seattle ablaze, and Kenosha, Wisconsin ablaze.
And what are these local elected officials doing or the governors of these states? They’re telling their law enforcement to stand down while people’s businesses and livelihoods are being destroyed. We didn’t grow up this way, and there’s a reason. We were taught accurately about our country. We were taught to love America. We were taught an accurate perspective of our history, good and bad. That’s what makes the United States of America so unique. And it makes this country the country that other people esteem and want to come to and live in.
Leahy: When you get on the commission, put in a good word for our own book, the supplementary text Guide to the Constitution and Bill of Rights for Secondary School Students. We have a Constitution Bee based on that every year where we give out educational scholarships. We’ve had a difficult time having public schools actually embrace that. A few have but most are not paying a lot of attention to it. So put in a good word for us, if you would. Laurie Cardoza-Moore, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.
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Photo “Laurie Cardoza-Moore” by Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.
